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An 8-year-old Arkansas boy got to meet the dog who has inspired him from afar for the past year.

Thanks to an anonymous donor, Carter Blanchard, who has Vitiligo, an auto-immune disease that causes skin to lose its pigmentation, flew to Oregon over the weekend to meet Rowdy, a 14-year-old black lab with the same condition.

With his owners, he works to further understanding of the condition, and help children — often embarrassed over and teased about the condition — to learn to be comfortable in the skin they’re in.

Carter, for example, began struggling with his self worth after his appearance changed when he was in kindergarten, his mother, Stephanie Adcock, said.

“He would go from room to room in my home looking at every mirror. I remember the day I picked him up from school when he said, ‘Mom, I hate my face,'” Adcock wrote in a letter to Ellen DeGeneres. “As his mother, it broke my heart that I could not change this situation for him.”

Earlier this year, Carter’s mother saw pictures online of Rowdy. She shared them with her son and contacted Rowdy’s owners, who included Carter in a video about Rowdy that went viral last fall.

When Carter saw the video, “He broke out in the biggest smile, according to his mother, and he said, “Me and Rowdy are famous.”

Carter started looking at his condition differently.

“For the first time in 2 years, Carter was proud of himself and his Vitiligo,” Adcock said in the letter. “He even said, ‘Mom, your skin is boring because you don’t have Vitiligo.’ Rowdy changed my son’s childhood. He changed our home and our lives.”

With Rowdy’s health declining rapidly, his owners decided they wanted Rowdy and Carter to meet, and one of his owners, Niki Umbenhower, started a GoFundMe campaign to allow Carter and his mother to make the trip from Searcy, Arkansas to Canby, Oregon.

Last week, an anonymous donor from Salem donated $5,000, making the trip possible.

Carter and his mom flew to Oregon Saturday and Carter and Rowdy met for the first time Sunday, KGW in Portland reported.

“The meeting was (and has been) one of the most gratifying, rewarding things I’ve personally ever experienced,” Umbenhower said.

“Rowdy saw a neurologist in the ER today. They are not sure if it was a seizure or a stroke or something else. They did a lot of tests and without a “much needed” (expensive) MRI and CT Scan, we may never know. He could have a tumor or a mass causing a lot of his issues.

“We left with them prescribing a new medication for seizures as well as some codeine for his pain. This could be age related, an isolated event, or he may have more episodes like today. . I want to thank EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU for the prayers, well wishes, and support!”

When Donald C. Copps saw an alligator swimming directly toward a dog in a lake he didn’t give a second thought to jumping in to try and save the black Lab.

And it wasn’t even his dog.

Copps was taking care of a friend’s dog, named Carbon, when the dog — an accomplished dock diver — jumped in the lake. Copps and two friends were hitting balls on a golf course when they noticed a 7-foot alligator making a beeline for the dog.

Without fully thinking about his actions, Copps said, he jumped in and yelled and splashed to distract the gator, and his friends hollered as well.

The alligator bit Carbon’s left thigh, but the dog managed to get out of the lake.

“By the time I gathered my senses, the dog was out of the water and I’m in it up to my chest, just feet from the gator,” Copps said, recounting the late January incident in an interview with the Naples Daily News.

Copps hurried ashore and, with his friends, Brian and Yuliya Vail, loaded the dog on a golf cart and took him to a vet. Carbon was treated for scrapes and puncture wounds.

“The dog was really lucky,” said Dr. Lon Miyahira, the veterinarian who treated Carbon “When I hear alligator bite or attack, I expect worse. It’s hard to recommend jumping into the water, but it’s probably why the dog was not badly injured.”

Copps said Carbon was sore and bothered by the cone he was required to wear after the attack, but within a week he was running around the house.

Copps, who lost his own dog, a yellow Lab, in 2015, is looking after Carbon for a few months while his owners are on a cruise.

Friend Yuliya Vail described his actions as heroic: “I think most people would freeze. He jumped in …That gator could’ve drowned Carbon. We could have watched him die.”
(Photo: Copps and Carbon on a return visit to the vet, by Luke Franke / Naples Daily News)

Having a gallery opening and appearing on the “The Rachael Ray Show” show in the same week would be quite the accomplishment for any artist.

But this one has only been painting a year.

And he has no hands.

Dagger II burst onto the art scene in March, when Newsday published a story about the paint brush- wielding, three-year-old black Labrador.

Yesterday, in light of his growing fame, there was a follow-up story in Newsday recounting his recent achievements.

Dagger II and his human, artist Yvonne Dagger, met Rachael Ray last month and demonstrated the dog’s skills. Dagger II, wearing his trademark red beret, was said to have hit it off especially well with Ray’s co-host for the day, Regis Philbin. The episode airs Friday.

Friday also marks the gallery debut of Dagger II — also known as DogVinci. His works will be on display at Long Island Picture Frame and Art Gallery in Massapequa Park.

Dagger II and his owner have partnered with that business to sell both original works and limited edition prints of his creations.

Yvonne Dagger adopted Dagger II after he flunked out of service dog training. It was discovered he had a fear of going up and down stairs.

After laying at her feet as she painted, he attempted his own foray into the art world.

Last Summer, Yvonne Dagger said, the dog who had always quietly watched as she painted began nudging her. She asked him if he wanted to paint and he began wagging his tail. She set up an easel for him, made a brush handle out of a paper towel tube and duct tape, and taught him some commands.

Yvonne helps him load the brush with non-toxic paints.

“Brush,” she tells Dagger to get him to take the makeshift brush in his mouth. “Paint,” she says to get him to apply brush to canvas.

His original paintings are selling for up to $325.

You can learn more about Dagger II, and view more of his works, at his website, DogVinci.com.

Miss Babe Ruth, the 9-year-old Lab who has retrieved more than 5,000 bats as the official bat dog of the Greensboro Grasshoppers, is retiring this week.

She’ll be around for the rest of the season, but will retrieve her last bat in Wednesday’s home game against the visiting Durham Bulls, according to the Charlotte Observer.

After her full retirement, she’ll be replaced by a new bat dog, Miss Lou Lou Gehrig, but team members will still have her teeth marks — left on many a bat — to remember her by.

Miss Babe has been the bat and ball dog of the Grasshoppers since 2006. She delivers a bucket of baseballs to the umpire in the first and fifth innings, retrieves Grasshopper bats in the third inning and runs the bases when the game is over.

Her Wednesday appearance will be her 649th consecutive home game in a career that saw her deliver about 4,000 balls, retrieve 5,000 bats, and gain national media exposure.

She has generated more than $200,000 in sponsorship fees since her first game on Aug. 2, 2006, has her own “Babe’s Buddies” fan club, and has a burger named after her at the concession stand.

“She loves it. She gets excited when the crowd gets excited,” said Grasshoppers President Donald Moore.

A retirement party was held for her at Saturday night’s game, where she received a key to the city from Mayor Nancy Vaughan and walked down a red carpet from the pitcher’s mound to home plate to deliver the game ball to the umpire.

Both Miss Lou Lou Gehrig and Master Yogi Berra, both related to Miss Babe, are also fixtures at the Grasshopper’s downtown stadium. Moore brings all three along on game days.

Grasshoppers manager Kevin Randel said the players enjoy their canine teammates: “The only knock on it is they get little teeth marks on the bats.”

Prosecutors said the dog’s discovery of a hidden flash drive was vital to the investigation.

Bear sniffed out a thumb drive that humans had failed to find during a search of Fogle’s home — several weeks before he pleaded guilty to having X-rated images of minors and paying to have sex with teenage girls.

Bear also took part in the investigation leading to this week’s arrest of Olympics gymnastics coach Marvin Sharp.

This week his owner and trainer, Todd Jordan, sold Bear to the Seattle Police Department to help investigate Internet crimes.

Jordan, a deputy fire chief, also trains dogs and sells them to law enforcement agencies.

Jordan gave NBC News a demonstration of Bear’s abilities, walking him through an apartment while repeatedly giving him the command “Seek!”

The dog zeroed in on a kitchen drawer, which Jordan opened to reveal a device. “Good boy!” he told Bear, giving him a treat.

Jordan got Bear as a rescue a year ago and spent four months training him on a food-reward system.